Traction machines taken by themselves and the combination of traction machines and attachment devices, such as for example transport trailers, loading wagons, hay rakes, tedders, mowers, balers, soil tilling equipment, crop sprayers and fertilizer spreaders are highly complex and cost-intensive systems. It is therefore important that such systems are operated efficiently.
Usually, the traction machine and the attachment device adapted to it are frequently optimized today independently of one another and in different places. In addition, it is not verified if the optimized parameters found for the traction machine and for the attachment device do in fact lead to an optimization of the operation of the combination of traction machine and the respective attachment device. The optimization of the mode of operation of the traction machine and its associated attachment device that is separate from one another additionally requires a high degree of special knowledge of the traction machine driver since he has to carry out the substantial adjustments such as for example engine, transmission and running gear adjustments on the traction machine and basic adjustments on the attachment device himself, while the machines themselves or the respective available operating instructions only partly support this process.
EP 0 838 141 discloses a system with which the soil tilling device, embodied as a plough, is equipped with a job calculator which is coupled via a bus system to the operating and display unit of the traction machine embodied as a tractor. The tractor driver can now specify adjustment parameters for the plough via the operating and display unit. Even by this example, it is readily evident how extensive the special knowledge of the operator has to be since with such systems the operator is required to specify adjustment parameters both for the traction vehicle and also for the attachment device.